COMPASS seminars 2005-07

Monitoring Social Change with Existing Data: The Family Whānau and Wellbeing Project
Gerry Cotterell
4 Apriil 2007
Gerry presented methods and findings from FWWP to a policy/research focused audience.

KAREN Forum Seminar on NZSSDS
Daniel Patrick
3 July 2007
This presentation described the group’s proposed data service to the KAREN/BeSTGrid community.

Family Wellbeing in an era of reform – monitoring changes in family wellbeing in New Zealand between 1981 and 2001
Andrew Sporle
12 July 2007
This was a conference presentation in Australia, covering FWWP work to July 2007.

Data Archiving in Australasia: Lessons from across the ditch
Sophie Holloway
16 August 2007
Sophie presented on the experiences of the Australian Social Science Data Archive (ASSDA) to an audience including representatives from The University of Auckland, Massey University, Victoria University of Wellington and University of Canterbury. Following this was a presentation from Daniel Patrick regarding progress on our own Data Service Project, tentatively known as the Social Science Data Archive Services Hub (SSDASH, pronounced stash). This was aided greatly by ASSDA in its early stages.

Social Simulation – Theory and Practice
Professor Nigel Gilbert
20 February 2006
This tutorial provided a short overview of historical and current simulation techniques applied in the social sciences (system dynamics, microanalytical simulation, discrete event simulation, multilevel simulation, cellular automata and multi-agent simulation) and compared them to other techniques of modelling social processes, making it clear that simulation is the tool of choice for modelling the interaction among a large number of actors.

Social distance, marriage patterns and social stratification in New Zealand 1981–2001: Using census data to map movement in social space
Stephen McTaggart
12 April 2006
This presentation examined changes in social stratification in New Zealand 1981–2001. This work was the first stage of a research project examining changes in social stratification and family-level wellbeing during this period of major social stratification and macroeconomic change in New Zealand.

The research was novel in that it used national unit-record level census data, enabling detailed analysis of social stratification dynamics for the entire population. This examination of stratification has methodological links to the work of Prandy and Lambert’s CAMSIS scale development project. The core of the CAMSIS project is the construction of “social interaction and stratification scales” for occupational units in a number of different countries, using information on the combination of occupational titles of marriage/cohabitation partners.

Modelling Social Change, using census data to simulate cohabitation patterns
Professor Peter Davis
12 May 2006

Agent-based modelling of innovation networks
Stephan Deschamps
9 June 2006

Social learning and norms in public goods games with intergenerational advice
Dr Ananish Chaudhuri
28 July 2006

Ethnicity matters but it doesn't count: Why ethnicity may no longer be a valid analytical concept
Andrew Sporle
9 August 2006
A discussion about different definitions of ethnicity, related data and conceptual issues, and possible alternatives.

Stats NZ as a Data Provider and Sector Leader: A case study of the Family Whānau and Wellbeing Project and others using existing data
Professor Peter Davis
10 August 2006
Peter presented on work from FWWP, focusing on Stats NZ’s involvement and infrastructure development.

Agent-based computational applications to model bidders’ behaviours in auctions
Dr Fernando Beltrán
25 August 2006

The Siren ambulance simulation system
Dr Andrew Mason
22 September 2006
This seminar charted the development of Siren, an ambulance simulation system originally developed for St John’s in Auckland, and now being used (or implemented) in Australia, the UK and Canada. Siren is used as a planning tool to provide performance estimates for future scenarios, such as moving an ambulance base or handling an increased number of callouts. Siren also provides GIS-style data visualisation capabilities for data analysis.

Microsimulation Modelling and Health: Techniques and policy applications
Associate Professor Laurie Brown
6 OCtober 2006
This seminar covered microsimulation modelling and health – a presentation of several models including DYNAMOD, demonstrating general principles and methods of microsimulation as well as how these can help in policy formulation and evaluation.

Timing and Social Change: An introduction to event history analysis
Professor Brad Jones
31 May 2005
Event history analysis involves the application of statistical methods to investigate the process of social change. This seminar provided an introduction to event history analysis, using New Zealand data to demonstrate how event history analysis could be used to explore the timing and extent of social change.

Simulating urban social change: Representing and analysing neighbourhoods and neighbourhood change
Associate Professor David O’Sullivan
29 November 2005

Machiavellian intelligence as a basis for the evolution of cooperative dispositions
Professor John Orbell
20 December 2005